Training, information, and encouragement for new amateur radio operators.

Database

The previous post introduced you to a very useful and popular ham website called QRZ. QRZ lets you look up details on a fellow ham you have interacted with over the air or in person, or perhaps just a call sign you have heard and wonder about.

As mentioned, the information on QRZ may be minimal. Lacking any user-supplied detail, QRZ will show only the licensee’s name, address and license class, license expiration, map location and distance from your station. This is derived from government amateur radio license info which is public record.

Like it or not, if you have a ham license you automatically have a QRZ page so why not make it useful?

I find that fewer than half the people on the air have any personal detail added so I would encourage you to create a free account on QRZ and add a photo and some personal information to your profile. You can share as little or as much as you want. I’ve seen pages that are huge with lots of graphics and photos and text and some with just a couple of sentences. Add some detail about yourself for us to know you better, as much as you are comfortable with.

It’s nice to put a face to the callsign and you get to choose the photo. Tell us just a little about yourself– things like hobbies and job and maybe what is your history with or interest in ham radio. An email address is also helpful for people to contact you that way.

Of course, if you’re really cautious with how much personal info is on the web, then maybe this isn’t for you. Remember that if you Continue reading →

Old-timers are already familiar with it but new or prospective hams may not be aware of a wonderful online callsign reference called QRZ.

The ham radio brevity code QRZ means, “who is calling me?” if you’re not sure or didn’t catch their complete callsign.

QRZ is a very powerful and popular callsign database that is located at qrz.com The QRZ site takes its name from the Q-code question, who is calling me? It’s particularly useful to look up a fellow ham you’re having a QSO with or have heard about or met in person.

If they have a callsign, you can look up their FCC registered address, license class, license expiration, exact location including the important Maidenhead grid square and a map of their location with exact distance from your station. It’s also useful for learning their previous callsigns if they have changed from what the FCC originally assigned them.

If the other ham has added info about themselves, you can see photos of them and their equipment, a biography, specific interests or whatever else they choose to share, including an email address. Hams can also use QRZ as a contact log if they choose to do so.

The database is updated daily from the FCC main file so it’s up to date and accurate. You can search by call sign, partial call, name, address or grid locator. If you look yourself up on the map you can see all the hams in your immediate vicinity; you might be surprised at how many there are.

I like to use QRZ to put a face to the name of people who are on Emcomm nets, the local repeaters, or during my HF QSOs and know a little more about them.

The QRZ database includes international hams so if you want to look up call signs around the world you can do that, too. I found a distant relative fellow ham in Germany just by searching my family name.

QRZ has at least one major competitor, HamCall, plus a copycat with the confusing name of QRZCQ.

Before personal computers and the internet became common, hams relied on large printed books to look up the name and address associated with a particular callsign. The main one was the Radio Amateur Callbook with the Pegasus (winged horse) mascot. It is still available on CD-ROM and/or USB memory stick. Old print copies can be found on eBay and Amazon.

So check out QRZ and start using it. I’m sure it will become a bookmarked browser favorite of yours.